RePower LA’s proposal “appears to be one of those rare public policy ideas that generates not only broad, but enthusiastic support from the electorate. Voters appreciate that it not only creates needed jobs, opportunities with union benefits, but it does so while cleaning our air, reducing electricity bills for 10,000 homes and businesses a year, and lowering electricity generating costs for generations
Art allows us to peer into the lives of people we may ordinarily not cross paths with and see the world through their eyes. LAANE’s Construction Careers project did exactly that last night at its photography exhibit and mixer at the Solidarity Ink gallery space in Lincoln Heights. Sixty InterAct members and community leaders mingled with construction workers in a melting pot of wine, cheese and art-gazing.
The goal: to holistically present the lives of ordinary people in the hard-construction industry. We wanted to paint a broad picture of workers from diverse backgrounds, showing them in their homes, neighborhoods and worksites. We strove to portray workers with a sense of grace, documenting intimate moments with their families and the pride that they take every day, in the words of several workers, in “building something that will last.”
The multifaceted realities of Tarita, Luis, Stefanie, and Jabari – four workers from different ethnicities,
Reading [Robert] Caro’s biographies of LBJ has become a multi-generational experience in our family. At 15, my son, who had never read anything more than Harry Potter, became enthralled with them, devouring the first three. This year, he bought the newest volume as my birthday present, I got my dad the book for Father’s Day, and my dad gave the book to my son for his birthday.
Much of our great fascination with Lyndon Johnson is the duality of his character: willing to lie and cheat, devoid of any principles on his path to power, and then as president, using that power to achieve lofty, principled goals that transformed our nation forever.
As Caro describes in the latest volume, The Passage of Power, as LBJ was preparing to address Congress just after assuming the presidency, “a fierce debate” between his advisors “erupted – over the emphasis to be given in the speech to civil rights.” As the discussion went on until 2:30 in the morning,
In mid-May, the management at Paleteria La Michoacana ice cream fired long-time delivery drivers, merchandisers, office workers and warehousemen at the Gardena and Modesto facilities, despite the fact that the boss, Ignacio Gutierrez, told employees earlier this year that his company is growing and profitable. The employee terminations occurred nearly on the eve of the scheduled Teamster representation election date.
Rick Middleton, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 572 in Carson:
“The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is under attack. This means Americans are under attack. This employer is blatantly showing a disregard for our laws. We are a country of laws – we respect our laws. No man, no company is above the law.”
The union has since filed charges against the company with the NLRA.
Join Teamsters and labor union supporters at our rally on Tuesday, June 26th in Modesto to protest the unlawful firing of workers at Michoacana.
» Read more about: Ice Cream Workers Fired Before Contract Vote »
(Editor’s Note: A slightly longer version of this post originally appeared in Dissent.)
Last month Wal-Mart became the latest company to drop its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council in response to public outrage over ALEC’s aggressive support for “Stand Your Ground” laws (which are implicated in the death of Trayvon Martin, among others). Wal-Mart won some kudos for leaving ALEC, but its shrewd move was nothing more than an attempt to divert attention from the retail giant’s current troubles and its multimillion dollar effort to burnish its image, peddle its influence, and increase its market share.
The uproar over the Wal-Mart bribery scandal in Mexico uncovered last month evokes the famous distinction between “dishonest graft” and “honest graft” made by George Washington Plunkitt, a Tammany Hall politician in the early 1900s. Dishonest graft, Plunkitt explained, involves bribes and blackmail.
It was Grover Norquist who famously said he wanted to shrink government to a size where he could drown it in a bathtub. Norquist’s Paulist allies in Congress (Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan) show no interest in stopping there, however, and probably would go after the bathtub next – or at least indoor plumbing. Of course, things like indoor plumbing and electricity are some of the creature comforts that were brought to millions of Americans by their federal government decades ago, because private enterprise saw no immediate profit in spreading such “luxury” to everyone. Without New Deal programs such as the Rural Electrification Administration, Tennessee Valley Authority and Farm Security Administration, many of us might still be sitting in the dark, as well as sitting – well, elsewhere, if you get my drift.
It’s become bad manners today, however, for government to remind us of the things it does for Americans – or rather,
» Read more about: "Drowning" Government: Be Careful What You Wish For »
Earlier this week, we reported on changes that are needed in the medical cannabis industry. Well, this Friday (June 22), the L.A. City Council takes up two competing proposals for how to deal with an industry that’s gotten out of control.
On the one hand, L.A. City Councilman Paul Koretz and Council President Herb Wesson have made a motion to direct the City Attorney to draft an ordinance that will allow patients limited safe access to responsible operators. The City Attorney would develop an ordinance that establishes strict guidelines for dispensary operations and subject them to city oversight.
This should curb the sorts of abuses we’ve read about, reduce the number of dispensaries, maintain high-road jobs and allow continued access of patients to their medicine.
On the other hand, Councilmen Jose Huizar and Mitchell Englander have proposed a so-called “gentle ban.” But far from being gentle,
» Read more about: Council Dispensary Vote: Compassion or Weed Wacking? »
It’s been seven years since documentary film maker Robert Greenwald‘sWalmart, The High Cost of Low Price exposed the corrosive effects the retail giant has had on America’s economy and on its workers.
Now, in advance of the June 30 March Against Walmart, Greenwald’s Brave New Foundation and Cuéntame have released a minute-long short, Stop the Invasion! No Wal-Martization!, in which local business, faith and labor leaders, along with Congresswoman Judy Chu, spell out why Walmart cannot be allowed to move into Chinatown. Take a look!
Fifty years ago I graduated from high school on the other side of town from where Dolores Huerta had a decade earlier. My high school class will hold its reunion this fall. Also 50 years ago, Huerta and Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers a few miles further south in Delano. The UFW just celebrated its half-century at its annual convention, this year in Bakersfield.
Long before I met Chavez I had heard of the legend. He had learned about organizing under Fred Ross, who was criss-crossing the state building the Community Service Organization (CSO) network among the Spanish-speaking urban barrios. But when Chavez wanted to expand CSO’s mission to organize farm workers in the Central Valley, CSO said no. So he did it on his own, with no money, no budget and only a handful of contacts. He went to Delano and began to work among the vineyards,
» Read more about: Fields of Dreamers: Looking Back at the UFW »